Thursday, November 8, 2007

Something is way hinky about the tabloid event of the season, the murder of Meredith Kercher. Meredith's roommate, Amanda Knox (now in custody), supposedly demanded "violent sex"--a guaranteed hot murder story. Add to that the alleged involvement of Amanda's boyfriend and another male friend from the Congo (that is to say, black) and you have all the ingredients for a 2-part CSI episode. From Sky News:

Murdered Meredith 'Refused Violent Sex'

Tuesday November 06, 2007

British exchange student Meredith Kercher was murdered because she refused to take part in violent sex, Italian police have claimed.

Officers spoke out following the arrest of the victim's flatmate Amanda Knox, 20 - and two men - after she reportedly broke down under interrogation.

She is said to have revealed more information about the death.

The three in custody are all suspected of conspiracy to commit manslaughter and to commit sexual violence.

They were seized in raids in Perugia early this morning.

Miss Kercher's body was found last Friday in her bedroom at the house she shared with Knox and two others on the Viale Sant'Angelo, not far from the city centre.

The Leeds University student, 21, from Coulsdon, south London, was partially clothed and her throat had been cut.

Italian news agency Ansa named the other two suspects as Italian student Rafaelle Sollecito, 24 - who is believed to be Knox's boyfriend - and Lumumba Diya, 37, from the Congo.

Sollecito was thought to be finishing his degree in the city and Diya, who is also known by the name Patrick, had been in the country since 1988 and had a regular work permit. Meredith had been learning Italian.

Detectives earlier confirmed fears that Miss Kercher appeared to have been killed when a sexual encounter went horrifically wrong.

Perugia's police chief Arturo De Felice told reporters the student had died fighting off a sexual attack.

He refused to elaborate further on the circumstances of her death but stressed that she was "morally innocent" and was a "victim and nothing more".

Miss Kercher, who arrived in Italy at the end of August as part of a one-year Erasmus programme, is thought to have died after being stabbed with a pocket knife.

A post-mortem test revealed there was evidence of sexual activity before her death, although medical examiners did not confirm suggestions that she had been raped.

The Times Online UK, offers more salacious details:

Meredith Kercher, the British student murdered in Perugia, was worried by the "strange men" her American housemate Amanda Knox brought back to their cottage, according to police evidence.

The emerging picture of Ms Knox's lifestyle in Italy is at odds with her reputation in the United States as a clean cut student, though not with some of the darker fantasies of her blog, in which she called herself "Foxy Knoxy" and wrote a story in which she imagined a drugged girl being killed.

In evidence to the police, Sophie Purton, 20, a close friend of the dead girl, said that Ms Kercher had told her that Ms Knox "had brought men back to the house several times, I don't know how many". She said Ms Kercher told her Ms Knox met the men in bars or internet cafes, and they included at least one "very strange type".

Hours before her death Ms Kercher watched a film at Ms Purton's home before walking back to the whitewashed hillside cottage she shared with Ms Knox and two Italian women. Ms Purton, who is not a suspect, told police she thought her account of Ms Kercher's anxieties over the men Ms Knox allegedly brought back might be "important".

The Perugia police chief Arturo De Felice has said Ms Kercher died fighting off a sexual attack. Ms Knox has accused Patrick Diya Lumumba, a 37 year old bar owner and musician, of the murder, and has claimed she does not remember whether Raffaele Sollecito, her Italian boyfriend, was also at the house.

In earlier testimony she had denied being at the house herself, and Mr Sollecito claimed they had been together elsewhere. But she later changed her story, telling investigators she had heard screaming from Ms Kercher's bedroom while Mr Lumumba was in it but stopped up her ears.

Police continue to suspect that Ms Knox was not only present at the house but took part in the murder, perhaps holding the victim down while she was sexually attacked. "All eyes are on the Dark Lady of Seattle," said La Stampa.

Ms Purton's revelation is one of several transcripts of police interrogations leaked to the Italian press. It was published by La Stampa and Corriere della Sera.

Ms Knox, Mr Sollecito, a computer science student, and Mr Lumumba, a Congolese immigrant, all appeared at a hearing today to confirm their continued detention on suspicion of involvement in murder and sexual violence. They were arrested on Tuesday.

Ms Kercher, 21, was found dead and semi naked in her bedroom last Friday. She was in Perugia studying Italian as part of her European Studies degree at Leeds University and arrived in August. Police have said she was "morally upright", suggesting she did not take part in the hidden drink and drugs culture of Perugia.

In an extraordinary twist Patrick Diya Lumumba not only denied today that he had murdered Meredith Kercher but claimed he had not even been in her house.

After lengthy questioning of the three suspects by Claudia Matteini, the investigating judge, Mr Lumumba's lawyers Carlo Pacelli and Giuseppe Sereni said their client had "an alibi".

"He was never in the house of horrors, and he can prove it," Mr Pacelli told reporters. "Our client has slept well because he believes in justice."

He added: "We have witnesses and documents which prove that our client was not there."

Mr Lumumba admitted to the judge that he knew Ms Kercher and had met her a month before her death. "I met her a couple of times," he said.

This however contradicts his claim at the time of his arrest that he did not know her at all.

Details of Ms Kercher's death emerged as police in the Italian university town of Perugia presented the case against Knox, her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Lumumba to a judge.

Ms Kercher, who had been in Italy only three months, was found lying semi-naked in her bedroom a week ago with her throat cut.

Court documents say Knox, a language and creative writing student who called herself "Foxy Knoxy" on her MySpace webpage, regularly brought men back to the flat for sex, despite her relationship with Sollecito.

The judge was told: "She has shown an unscrupulous tendency to lie constantly to investigators."

Police believe the attack may have followed a session of drug-taking.

Toxicology tests are not yet complete but they have found marijuana plants in the garden of the house.

Sollecito, 23, is not believed to have been present at the time of the murder but helped cover it up.

All three are being held in prison, although their lawyers insist they are innocent.

The judge was expected today to decide on charges.

It emerged last night that Ms Kercher's friend Sophie Purton, 20, helped turn police attention to Knox by telling them about her lovers.

She said Ms Kercher had described one in particular who was "very strange".

Knox, whose website contained a story about a girl being drugged and raped, has already given two different accounts of what happened.

The first said she spent the night of the killing with Sollecito, a doctor's son.

They went back to the shared home, found bloodstains and signs of a break-in and called police.

Officers broke down Ms Kercher's locked bedroom door and found her body.

But police were not convinced.

They monitored Knox's mobile phone and overheard her telling Sollecito on Monday night: "I cannot do it any more, I cannot bear it."

The three suspects were seized a few hours later.

Knox, from Seattle, is reported to have "crumbled" under interrogation, bursting into tears and "confessing" as a detective said: "You did it, you held her down."

She claimed to have been in the flat's kitchen and to have held her hands over her ears to block out Ms Kercher's dying screams.

She told police she could remember nothing further until waking at Sollecito's home, a short walk away.

But a police source said: "If she heard screams why didn't she call for help or go and see what was happening?"

One document presented to the court said: "The sex between Patrick and Meredith was particularly intimidatory with Knox helping Diya."

Locals said they had been told Knox gave police the names of several men she had taken home for sex.

A fourth suspect is being hunted by Italian police investigating the murder of UK student Meredith Kercher, it emerged last night.

Detectives want to trace a North African musician, who they have not named, after forensic experts found a bloody fingerprint in the 21-year-old's apartment in Perugia that did not match those of the three existing suspects.

Ms Kercher, from London, was found with her throat cut on 2 November. Police believe she was stabbed after refusing to join in an "extreme" drug-fuelled sexual game initiated by her American flatmate Amanda Knox. Her body was flown to Rome last night but its planned repatriation to the UK today was blocked pending a court decision after defence lawyers for suspect Patrick Lumumba demanded it be re-examined to determine the time of her death.